Jamie Lewis Keith is Vice President, General Counsel and University Secretary of the University of Florida, one of the largest public AAU research and land-grant universities in the U.S., with over 30 tax-exempt private affiliates. Prior to UF, Ms. Keith was Senior Counsel for Massachusetts Institute of Technology (creating and leading MIT’s first primary counsel’s office), the General Counsel and Assistant Commissioner of the Massachusetts capital assets agency in Governor William F. Weld’s administration, and a junior partner in the Boston law firm, Hale and Dorr (now Wilmer Hale). Ms. Keith works nationally on diversity and research policy. She is a long-serving member of the College Board’s Diversity Collaborative Advisory Group and of the Advisory Board of the Center for Advancing Science and Engineering Capacity at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is one of 10 general counsels who are members of the Legal Advisory Committee for the Association of American Universities (AAU), a member of AAU's Biomedical Research Policy Working Group, and a former board member of the Council on Governmental Relations which works closely with AAU and advises research universities and affiliated academic health centers on research policy, regulation, funding and contracting.
From 2008-2012, Ms. Keith, with AAAS colleagues, conceived and co-directed AAAS’ nation-wide Diversity and the Law Project, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, to provide policy and law guidance and tools on what can be done through partnerships of academic policymakers and lawyers to increase access to higher education and academic careers, expand the diversity of faculties and student bodies, and foster excellence in education, research and service in a global society. The project, including Ms. Keith, AAAS colleagues and outside counsel, has published extensive resource materials and tools, and hosted a series of workshops for provosts, other senior policymakers and general counsels. In addition to AAU, institutions participating in this AAAS Project include the American Association of Community Colleges, American Council on Education, Association of American Medical Colleges, Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, College Board, Institute for Higher Education Policy, National Association of College and University Attorneys, and Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Ms. Keith is a graduate of Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences, where she studied art history, focusing on Asian art and Chinese language, and Boston University School of Law, where she was an Article Editor of the Law Review. She clerked for the Honorable Bailey Aldrich on The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Ms. Keith is admitted to the Florida and Massachusetts Bars.
She's a big proponent of the D.
